The way it was: Today in history - April 14

Abraham Lincoln

The death bed scene after President Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, is shown in this copy of a lithograph titled "Death of Lincoln." The picture depicts Mary Todd Lincoln kneeling beside the bed and members of the cabinet behind it. This picture was supposed to have been given to a friend by Mrs. Lincoln shortly after the funeral and then passed down through the family from generation to generation. The picture is one of many created in the years after the assassination that inserted people into the scene according to the Ford's Theatre.

Titanic hit by iceberg

An artist impression shows the April 14, 1912 shipwreck of the British luxury passenger liner Titanic off the Nova Scotia coast during its maiden voyage. The supposedly "Unsinkable" Titanic set sail from Southampton, England enroute to New York on April 10, 1912 and met disaster on April 14 after hitting an iceberg off Newfoundland shortly before midnight and sinking two hours later. One thousand five hundred and fifteen people lost their lives while 700 people survived.

Credit: OFF/AFP/Getty Images

Titanic survivors

Group of survivors of the Titanic disaster aboard the Carpathia after being rescued.

Credit: Library of Congress

J.C. Penney

James Cash (J.C.) Penney, right, stands with his son, Kimball, outside the White House after calling on President Herbert Hoover in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4, 1932.

The first JCPenny's department store was opened on April 14, 1902.

Credit: AP

Betty Grable

Actress Betty Grable poses in a costume from her new film "Diamond Horseshoe" in Hollywood, April 14, 1945.

Credit: AP

Mount Rushmore

Lincoln Borglum, left, directs driller "Happy" Anderson as Anderson works on the sculpture of President Abraham Lincoln's beard on Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota on April 14, 1941.

Credit: AP

Concentration camp victims

These two starving, emaciated men are liberated inmates of Lager Nordhausen a Gestapo concentration camp near Nordhausen, Germany on April 14, 1945.

The camp according to G 2 104th Infantry Division, U.S. First Army had from 3,000 to 4,000 inmates including French, Polish Belgian, a few Russian and several German political prisoners. Several hundred inmates died of starvation or were shot by Gestapo men and all of the prisoners were maltreated beaten and starved.

Credit: AP

Nuremberg trials

Defendant Gottlob Berger, former chief of the SS head office, is sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, flanked by Sgt. 1st class Thomas H. Andress from Palestine, Texas, member of the honor guard 16th inf., left, and an unidentified honor guard. Berger received the longest sentence of all the defendants.

Today the last 21 German war criminals were tried for having committed crimes against peace, before an U.S. court in the "Wilhelmstrasse Trial" in Nuremberg, Germany, April 14, 1949. It was the eleventh of twelve war crimes trials, known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, held in the U.S. occupation zone in U.S. military courts.

Credit: Riethausen/AP

Polio vaccines

In this April 14, 1947 file photo, a long line winds toward the entrance to Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, where doctors are inoculating against smallpox.

In an attempt to halt the spread of the disease, officials said city residents were being vaccinated at the rate of eight a minute.

Credit: AP

Water skiing elephant

With speeds up to 20 miles per hour, both woman and beast seemed to enjoy the ride. In the background is the roller coaster at Palisades Amusement Park where the skiing elephant is attached to the circus.

Credit: Jacob Harris/AP

FDR funeral

The flag-draped coffin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt is borne along Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1945, on a caisson drawn by white horses, at center, as crowds line the route from Union Station to the White House. In the background are the Washington Monument and the domed building in front of it is the National Museum. At right is the Archives Building and in the far distance stands the Lincoln Memorial.

The president died April 12 while on vacation in Warm Spring, Georgia after suffering a stroke. A funeral train brought the FDR's body from Georgia to Washington for funeral services. Afterwards, Roosevelt was taken by train to his final resting place in Hyde Park, New York.

Credit: AP

"Houston we've had a problem"

London evening newspaper headlines about the U.S. Apollo 13 space mission and the battle to bring the astronauts and their crippled spaceship back to Earth from a quarter million miles away, April 14, 1970.

on April 13, 1970, astronaut Jack Swigert reported to Mission Control the famous words, "Houston, we've had a problem" (changed in the 1995 "Apollo 13" movie to "Houston, we have a problem" said by commander James Lovell).

En route to the Moon, an oxygen tank exploded on one of two spacecraft, orbiter Odyssey where the astronauts lived, crippling it. The other, Aquarius, didn't have a heat shield for the trip back to Earth. The astronauts had limited power, were short of potable water and were without heat. The mission to the Moon was aborted and the astronauts had to risk splashdown not knowing if Odyssey's heath shield still worked. The crew returned to Earth safely on April 17.

Credit: Eddie Worth/AP

Manson family

Manson family members, Sandra Good, left, and Susan Murphy, sat behind a mesh wire screen in a U.S. Marshal's auto as they were taken from the Federal Court in Sacramento, California April 14, 1976 after their sentencing.

Good was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison and Murphy received five years for conspiring to mail death threats to business and public officials. Charles Manson and the group he led carried out nine murders in the summer of 1969, including that of actress Sharon Tate.

Credit: Walt Zeboski/AP

Larry Flynt shot

Larry Flynt, owner of Hustler magazine, lies on a stretcher in Atlanta on April 14, 1978, as attendants prepare to load him on board a hospital plane. Flynt, shot on a Lawrenceville street in early March, is paralyzed from the hips down. Security was tight during the transfer.

Credit: AP

Jack Nicklaus wins Masters

Jack Nicklaus reacts as he finishes on the 18th to win the Masters Championship at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia on April 14, 1986. It was his sixth Masters win.

Credit: AP

Space Shuttle Columbia returns

Space Shuttle Columbia, accompanied by a chase plane, is shown April 14, 1981 as it makes its landing approach at Edwards Air Force Base in California. STS-1 was the first shuttle flight, launched April 12 and returning two days later after orbiting Earth 37 times.

Credit: AP

Atlanta Child Murders

Pallbearers carry the casket of Larry Rogers from an Atlanta church, April 14, 1981 followed by his foster father, George Hood, center with glasses, and other relatives and friends. Rogers was the 23rd victim in a string of crimes investigated by a special task force. At least 28 African-Americans were killed over two years.

Credit: Joe Holloway/AP

Checkpoint Charlie

Hundreds of Germans jam the border from East to West Berlin at the border crossing Oberberbaumbruacke, April 14, 1990, for Easter weekend holiday trips. For many Germans it is the first chance in decades to spend Easter with relatives on the other side of he divided city.

The wall opened Nov. 1989, leading to wild jubilation, and was completely demolished by 1992.